Shanghai aims to build a strong base for foreign investment

Shanghai is to take action to build a strong base for the utilization of foreign investment.

The city will take advantage of the open economy to lure more foreign investment and better serve foreign-funded enterprises, while helping promote the quality and efficiency of headquartered economies, and cultivate more high-level local multinational companies.

At Shanghai's annual commercial work conference held on Tuesday, the city arranged key tasks for commercial development in 2023, with a focus on promoting commerce and economy. The goal is to effectively improve quality and achieve reasonable growth in quantity, and to accelerate the construction of a modern socialist metropolis with global influence.

The key tasks are set mainly in eight aspects. When enhancing trade in goods, for example, the city will go all out to stabilize the fundamentals of foreign trade, accelerate the expansion of new international trade, and push ahead high-quality development of the exhibition industry.

It pledges to continue to optimize the business environment for cross-border trade, and enhance the ability to prevent and control international economic and trade risks.

To support the innovation of trade in services, meanwhile, it's striving to create a national demonstration zone on the services trade innovation and development, and vigorously develop digital trade.

The city will also expand the scale of commodity markets, cultivate high-capacity commodity trading platforms, and deepen the pilot integration of domestic and foreign trade.

In 2022, Shanghai saw the actual use of foreign investment hit a record high at US$23.96 billion.

The city's total import and export of goods reached 4.2 trillion yuan (US$619 billion) last year, rising 3.2 percent year on year to register another record high in scale, while the total amount of port trade maintained first place among global cities.

Retail sales of social consumer goods added up to 1.64 trillion yuan. Also, 2022 saw 1,073 brands set up their first stores in the city, with the quantity and quality continuing to maintain a leading position among domestic cities.